Bono State

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This article is about the pre-colonial Akan kingdom. For the modern-day Ghanaian administrative division, see Bono Region.
Bono State
Bonoman
11th-13th century–1723
StatusFormer kingdom
Capital
and largest city
Bono Manso
Common languagesBono Twi
Religion
DemonymBono
GovernmentMonarchy
Bonohene 
• Pre-11th century
Nana Asaman (Ancestory and traditional founder)
• d. 1723
Ameyaw Kwakye I (Last independent Bonohene)
LegislatureCouncil of Chiefs (Amanhene)
Historical eraPrecolonial West Africa
• Early occupation of Amowi I [1]
c. 440 AD
• Established
11th-13th century
• Consolidation of power through formation of early Bono towns under local chiefs[2]
11th–13th centuries
• Territorial expansion under Ameyaw and Obunumankoma
14th–16th centuries
• Period of prosperity and extensive northern trade; adoption of horses, brassware, and northern textiles[3]
16th–17th centuries
• Internal unrest, dynastic conflict, and political decline preceding the Asante conquest[4]
Late 17th century
• Conquest by the Asante Empire[5]
1723
Currency
 Succeeded by
Techiman
Today part of Ghana
Ivory Coast

The Bono State (or Bonoman) was one of the earliest Akan polities located in what is today the Bono Region and Bono East Region of Ghana. Archaeological and oral evidence situate its origins at Amowi near Nkoranza, with later expansion to Bono Manso, which became its capital during it's formative period. The state played an important role in the development of Akan civilization and trade between the forest and savanna zones.[7][8] Bonoman was a trading center connecting merchants across Africa.[9]

The state's wealth grew substantially through the control of gold production and trade, with material culture such as goldweights, brassworking, and textiles attesting to its urban complexity.[10] The Akan gold trade to the savanna and beyond had been active since the opening of the Akan goldfields to Juula merchants under the Mali Empire and Songhai Empire from at least the 15th century. Gold from Begho was sent north through Kong and Bobo-Dioulasso, from where it was carried to the Djenné–Timbuktu corridor and across the Sahara.[11] The Bono state was strategically located in the northern forest fringes of the Akan world, within the forest–savanna transition zone south of the Black Volta.[12][13] This location facilitated frequent caravans from Djenné, Timbuktu, and other trade centers across Sudan and Egypt, making Bono a major commercial hub.[14]

Etymology

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According to Takyiman oral traditions, the Bono assert they are the first organized Akan group to develop in the area, while other states were believed to have appeared later. This belief is supported by the saying among some Akan groups that when a person gives birth for the first time, the event is called Abɔnɔwoo. Based on this, the name Bono is understood to mean a pioneer or the first of its kind, and is said to refer specifically to the ancestors of the Takyiman people, who were the earliest settlers in the Brong-Ahafo Region.

Another interpretation, connects the name to the Bono word Bɔɔ, meaning “hole.” This version holds that the ancestors of the Takyiman people emerged from a hole and were given the name because they originally lived in such places. Both traditions emphasize that the name Bono properly refers to the Takyiman people, whose ancestors were considered the first inhabitants of the region.[15][16]The name of the capital, Bono Manso, translates to ɔman (“nation, town”) and so (“on” or “at”) or “the seat of Bono.”[17] Hence the expression “Bono Manso State” would be tautological. [18]The term Bonoman combines Bono (“the Bono people”) with ɔman (“nation” or “state”), and thus means “the Bono nation” or “land of the Bono.”[17]

History

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Emergence from Amowi cave

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The earliest ancestors of the Bono people originated from a sacred rock-shelter known as Amowi, which was situated near Pinihi in the modern Nkoransa area and had been inhabited since at least the 5th century CE.[19][15][20] The site is remembered as the place from which the first people of the land are said to have emerged and began to first to inhabit and farm the land in the area.[16] From Amowi, the early settlers, led by the ancestral figure Nana Asaman, moved a short distance to Yɛfri(Yefri) and later to Manso, which became the capital of their state.[1] Excavations at Amowi I, Amowi II, and Bono Manso revealed a long sequence of continuous occupation, with pottery remains forming more than 99 percent of all recovered materials. Most ceramics were locally made, though some imported vessels originated from the Banda and Bole regions.[21] Further excavations near Bono Manso identified early iron-smelting activity dating to around 300 CE at Abam[22] and to about the 6th century CE in the surrounding area. This evidence indicates that the Bono of the Bono Manso region had already established permanent communities that later developed into a proto-urban settlement.[22][23]

Consolidation and political formation

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According to historians Bono Manso was not the earliest of the large villages and towns in the region; it was simply the first to acquire supremacy over all the surrounding settlements through its primary role as the seat of the Bono kingship.[19] The Bono began consolidating political authority through the gradual unification of dispersed settlements across the Bono East Region.[2] Small hunter and farmer camps, known locally as nnan, evolved into permanent villages that formed the foundations of the emerging state. Early communities such as Akumadan and Besedan developed from these camps. Besedan, for instance, was established by slaves of a Bono queen to cultivate and care for kola trees, reflecting the integration of agricultural specialization into the developing political system.[24] As Bono authority expanded, it absorbed neighboring groups and incorporated them into a centralized administrative structure. The Gyamma people, who originally lived in caves near the first Bono settlements, became custodians of the sacred golden stool called Sika puduo, the principal symbol of Bono unity and kingship. The Dewoman people were also integrated into the political hierarchy, with their ruler serving in the Bono court.[24]

Trade and Prosperity

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A key factor in the rise of Bonoman was the need to protect and regulate gold extraction in the surrounding Akan goldfields and to develop commercial routes linking the area to the Middle Niger.[25] The nearby town of Begho (also known as Nsɔkɔ) emerged as a complementary trading hub where regional commodities like gold, kola, ivory, and forest products were exchanged for textiles, salt, and metal goods brought by Wangara merchants.[26] Two early rulers, Ameyaw and Obunumankoma, oversaw Bonoman's territorial expansion and commercial ascendancy in the latter half of the 15th century.

Between the 16th and 17th centuries, Bono Manso developed into a major commercial and cultural center linking the forest and savanna zones. Its merchants exchanged gold, kola nuts, and iron goods for northern textiles, salt, and brassware brought by Wangara and Mande traders.[3] Unlike the nearby trading town of Begho, there was no evidence of a resident foreign merchant enclave at Bono Manso.[19] Commerce appears to have been locally controlled by Bono elites, The population was largely Akan and ethnically homogeneous, and Bono’s internal administration maintained direct oversight of trade and craft production.[23] The state’s cohesion was aided by internal peace; disputes (akokoakoko) mentioned in traditions likely referred to family quarrels and secessions rather than full-scale wars. Until the seventeenth century, Bono’s authority remained unchallenged in the Brong area, with subordinate states such as Dewuman and Nyafoman owing allegiance to its king [27]. However, some accounts recall external pressures from rival states such as the Gonja kingdom.[28][29]

Growing decline

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The decline of Bonoman was gradual and driven by overlapping internal and external factors. Evidence from Bono Manso indicates signs of demographic decline and economic restructuring beginning in the 17th century, likely due to droughts, dynastic instability, and shifting trade networks.[30] As southern Akan states like Akyem, Denkyira, and eventually the Asante Empire secured greater access to coastal markets and European firearms, Bonoman, located inland and lacking direct access to Atlantic trade, was increasingly bypassed in regional commerce.[31]

Internally, excessive taxation, succession disputes, and elite misconduct contributed to weakening central authority. Oral histories collected from Bono informants describe widespread discontent under Ameyaw Kwakye I, the last Bonohene. His perceived abuses of power included neglect of religious obligations and extortionate tax levies.[32] Before the Asante invasion, disillusioned citizens are said to have refused to defend the capital, expressing their frustration with the phrase: “Se hene Ameyaw anya ne ko a onko nhye” ("If king Ameyaw has got his war, let him fight it all").[33]

Fall and conquest

[edit]
Further information: Asante Empire

Bono’s prosperity and mineral wealth attracted Asante expansion. Oral and documentary sources date the invasion to 1722–1723 AD. A letter from the Dutch West India Company in 1724 described Asante defeating “a district three times stronger” through treachery, consistent with Bono’s fall. The Kitab Ghunja likewise notes Bawo’s attack on Takyiman in 1722/23 [34]. The Bono king and queen were captured and taken to Kumasi, and Bono craftsmen were absorbed into Asante workshops, weaving, brass-casting, and goldsmithing traditions, many Bono craftsmen were taken to Kumasi by the Asantehene, where they taught their arts to the Asante.[35] Much of Bono territory was incorporated into the Nkoransa state under Baffo Pim, while Takyiman, originally a subordinate village, became the new seat of Bono’s surviving royal line [36]. The royal lineage was later re-established in Takyiman under Asante suzerainty by approximately 1740.[37] Subsequent attempts to restore the old state failed, and relations with Asante and Nkoransa remained strained thereafter. Groups from Bono moved northwest to integrate into Gyaman, while others regrouped in Dormaa, Nkoranza, and Berekum.[38] Techiman, as successor to Bono-Manso, preserved many of these traditions. It remains a major traditional authority, with oral histories and rituals connecting it directly to the early Bono kingdom.[39] Takyiman including other Bono settlements became independent in 1896 after the British conquest of Asante.[40]

Society

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Social structure

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Socially, early Bono settlements were organized by streets and quarters rather than by matrilineal clans. This pattern parallels early Akan urban organization before the full development of the abusua (clan) system.[41] Only one ancient quarter at Bono Manso, associated with the Dwomoo clan, is recalled in tradition.[42] In 1929 Rattray recorded that the Bono of Takyiman were “apparently wholly ignorant of these Ashanti and Fante clan names,” and that instead of identifying by clans such as Oyoko or Agona, they referred to streets or quarters (Abronno) within their towns. Rattray theorized the Bono originally had an older social system based on residence and occupation rather than the abusua clan structure developed later among southern Akan groups and spread through Asante influence, making the Bono model an earlier form of Akan urban organization.[43] Further evidence compiled by Boachie-Ansah explains that, unlike the Asante and southern Akan whose clans were named after totems, the clans of Wenchi and Takyiman derived from the quarters where their ancestors first settled. These quarters were often named after trees or landmarks rather than lineage groups. This indicates that Bono societies have been separated from the Akan of southern regions for a long time, and that it was after this separation that the clan system and the semi-military system of government evolved among the Akan of southern. Ghana[44]

Specialized quarters

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Each level of settlement had designated quarters for craftsmen, traders, and ritual specialists. Blacksmiths (atomfoo) were numerous at Nyafoman, with one hundred and fifty said to have been drafted to the royal court at Bono Manso to supply tools and weapons. Bono artisans were also skilled in crafts like pottery, metalwork, cloth weaving, and blacksmithing.[45] Villages like Akyemhatae guarded the royal gold regalia, Besedan maintained the queen-mother’s kola groves, and Akyeremade housed the drummers of Dewoman.[46]

Religion

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Religious oracles influenced both settlement and governance. During epidemics or crises, deities were consulted, and entire populations might relocate according to divine instruction. Such sacred authority reinforced the legitimacy of the Bonohene, who was regarded as both political leader and ritual head of the state.[47] Spiritual life centered around river gods (such as Tano) and ancestral veneration of Asaase Yaa and spiritual connection to Nyame, practices which were deeply embedded into political authority and social order.[48][49][50] Religious beliefs centers upon Nyame, who manifests through His offspring or messengers—the abosom. Two main categories of shrines exist: forest spirits and those originating at the source of the Tano River, the fountain of all Taa deities. The highest, Taa Kora, is venerated at a rock altar near Tanoboase, where envoys from other Akan states annually present sacrifices and draw water for purification of ancestral stools and state gods.[51]Bono spiritual traditions, centered on Tanɔ River deities such as Taa Mensa and Taa Kora, continue to influence Akan cosmology. These abosom (deities) are viewed as emissaries of the Creator and play a key role in indigenous healing systems, where priests (ɔbosomfoɔ) and ritual specialists (ɔkɔmfoɔ) maintain sacred continuity.[52]

Divisions

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In it's height Bono's territories were bounded to Bonduku and Banda to the west, Gonja and Yendi to the north, Mampong and Offinso to the south, and Kete-Krakye to the east.[53] Effah-Gyamfi observed that Bono towns, though highly urbanised, were culturally homogeneous Akan communities rather than ethnically mixed trading colonies. The capital served simultaneously as royal residence, market centre, and ritual hub from which political communication radiated throughout the state.[54] Settlements were arranged in a four-tier hierarchy headed by the capital, Bono Manso, described in oral tradition as “the town with one-hundred-and-seventy-seven streets.” Beneath it were provincial centres such as Takyiman, Amoman, and Dewoman, each said to have “seventy-seven streets.” Subordinate krom towns—like Kramokrom and Forikrom, were followed by nkuraa villages such as Akyemhatae and Besedan that performed specialised agricultural or craft functions.[55]

Bono Manso

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Bono Manso (literally "great town of Bono") was the capital of Bonoman and a major trading hub in present-day Bono East Region. Located just south of the Black Volta River, it was a key node in the Trans-Saharan trade, connecting the Akan goldfields with major northern markets such as Djenné and Timbuktu. Goods traded through Bono Manso included gold, kola nuts, salt, leather, and cloth. Archaeological and historical evidence suggest the town was already settled by the 13th century and had become a prominent commercial and ritual center by the 14th and 15th centuries.[56] It likely covered an area of between 150 and 230 hectares and supported a population of approximately 5,000 inhabitants, based on architectural remains and settlement density estimates.[57] Its strategic location near the headwaters of the Tano River enabled access to the forest-savanna transition zone and placed it at the southernmost range of safe caravan travel, beyond which the tsetse fly made pack animal transport unviable.[58]

Kranka Dada

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Kranka Dada was a village settlement northeast of Bono Manso and one of the best-documented hinterland sites in the Bono Region. Although not an urban center, it played an essential role in Bono Manso's political and economic systems. Excavations conducted between 2009 and 2012 uncovered household remains, ritual features, and long-distance trade artifacts.[59] The site consisted of residential mounds occupied from the late 13th to the mid-18th century. Radiocarbon data confirms continuous habitation until the Asante Empire conquest in 1723.[60] Notable features include wattle-and-daub structures, granaries, iron-smelting debris, and ceremonial hearths. Artifacts such as brass fragments, glass beads, imported ceramics, and terracotta rasps highlight both local industry and regional connectivity.[61]

Kranka Dada likely functioned as a satellite settlement, supplying agricultural produce, labor, and ritual expertise to Bono Manso. Compton places it within a four-tiered settlement hierarchy, reflecting the integration of smaller communities into centralized Bono administration.[57] Despite its rural character, Kranka Dada households had access to many trade goods also found at the capital. The site was abandoned after the 1723 invasion, though oral traditions recall that a shrine priestess remained after the town’s collapse.[33]

Begho

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Begho (also Bighu, Bitu, Bew, or Nsokɔ) was a medieval market town situated just south of the Black Volta in the forest–savanna transition zone.[62] It served as a cultural and linguistic bridge between Akan and Mande societies. Although not politically subordinate to the Bonohene,[63] Begho was governed by an Akan elite over a multiethnic population, including a substantial Muslim Wangara merchant community.[64][65]

Numerous Akan language terms for trade and status—such as kramo (Muslim), oponko (horse), gyata (lion), and adaka (box)—derive from Mandé languages, reflecting long-standing trade interactions.[66] Begho emerged as an entrepôt for northern caravans beginning around 1100 AD. Goods included ivory, salt, leather, gold, kola nuts, cloth, and copper alloys.[67][68] Begho had an estimated population exceeding 12,000 inhabitants during the 15th century, comparable to major Sahelian cities.[69] As Bono Manso population was estimated around 5000 and other areas thereafter, the inclusive total population of the state depicted it as a highly developed pre-colonial African center.

Islamic sources claim the Mali Empire launched a punitive expedition against Begho in the mid-16th century after disruptions in the gold trade.[70] While these accounts suggest temporary Mande political influence, oral traditions assert that the invaders were repelled,[71] and that Begho's internal governance persisted uninterrupted.[72] Excavations at Begho uncovered walled structures, iron-smelting furnaces, pottery, and smoking pipes, dating from 1350 to 1750 AD. With an estimated population exceeding 10,000, it was one of southern West Africa's largest urban centers by the time the Portuguese arrived in 1471.[68]

Economy

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Bono’s prosperity derived from its strategic location at the meeting point of the forest and savanna zones. This environment provided access to both forest and savanna products: rice, yams, sorghum, wild game, and the lucrative kola nut (Sterculia acuminata) [73]. Situated on the southern terminus of the north-western trade route from the Middle Niger, Bono served as an exchange point for northern traders using donkeys and horses, which could not survive further south in the dense forest [74]. The area’s abundant gold resources further strengthened its role as a commercial hub, enabling Bono merchants to act as middlemen for forest produce destined for northern markets [73].

Currency

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The unit of currency was gold, measured using standardized gold weights. Chiefs and elders regulated the value of commodities by fixing gold quantities corresponding to units such as peredwan, doma, and dwoa.[6]

Historiography

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Early vs. modern scholarship

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Early historians generally viewed Bono as the earliest cradle of Akan civilization, portraying it as the point from which political institutions, trade systems, and cultural traditions of later Akan states originated.[75] Writers such as F. K. Buah, Kwame Arhin, and other mid-century Ghanaian historians reinforced this interpretation, describing Bono as the nucleus from which later Akan states such as Denkyira, Akyem, and Asante emerged through migration and political diffusion.[76][77]This interpretation was supported by oral traditions that emphasized Bono’s political seniority and cultural influence, portraying it as the source from which other Akan groups dispersed to establish new states across the forest zone.[76] However, later archaeological and historical studies have revised this view, revealing that Akan societies in the northern and southern forests developed around the same time through shared trade, culture, and religion.[78] This broader perspective positions Bono as one of several early Akan centers, alongside Adansemanso, Asantemanso, and Begho, highlighting a network of interconnected forest communities that collectively shaped the foundations of Akan civilization.[79]

Scholarly debates and reassessments

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Reassessment of Eva Meyerowitz

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Dennis M. Warren re-examined the writings of Eva Meyerowitz on the Techiman-Bono (Brong) people and found serious methodological and chronological problems in her reconstruction of Bono history. Meyerowitz had proposed that the Bono-Manso was founded as early as 1295 CE and other scholars regarded as unsupported by evidence.[80] Warren argued that Meyerowitz’s precise dating and extensive king lists rested on weak field techniques, linguistic errors, and unverified oral data.[81] He noted that her alleged list of thirty-seven Bono rulers from 1295 to 1950 could not be corroborated by Techiman elders, and that even her informants denied supplying the names she published.[82] Physical checks of the Techiman stool rooms revealed only eight ancestral stools, none dating earlier than the eighteenth century, and no evidence of the “gold-nugget containers” she claimed were used to record reign lengths.[83]

Warren also demonstrated that many of Meyerowitz’s names were duplicated under variant spellings, her translations inconsistent, and several chronological sequences impossible—for instance, chiefs she dated to the fifteenth century actually ruled after the Asante-Bono wars of 1722–1723.[84] He concluded that her data represented isolated oral statements rather than genuine oral traditions, and that her reconstructions introduced invented “traditions” such as Bono migrations from Timbuktu that are unknown in local accounts.[85] According to Warren, these inaccuracies had major effects, since later school textbooks and popular histories repeated Meyerowitz’s works, shaping misconceptions about Akan origins.[86] He recommended that Techiman-Bono chronology be re-established only from verifiable 18th- and 19th-century evidence.[87]

Colin Flight also conducted a re-evaluation of Meyerowitz’s Bono-Manso chronology using statistical analysis and corroborating Arabic and colonial records.[88] He confirmed that Meyerowitz’s fieldwork at Techiman in the 1940s relied heavily on the cooperation of Nana Akumfi Ameyaw III, who sought to use her publications to strengthen Techiman’s political position within the Ashanti Confederacy.[89] Flight noted that Meyerowitz’s data were based on an alleged ritual system in which each king annually deposited a gold nugget in a brass vessel (kuduo) and each queenmother placed a silver bead or cowry in a decorated pot to record the years of reign.[90] These were reportedly counted in 1945 by Kofi Antubam, Meyerowitz’s interpreter, and the results sent to her as numerical data for reconstructing the Bono-Manso dynasty.[91]

The colonial fabrication of a Ghana Empire exodus

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Main article: Ghana Empire

A persistent but historically unsupported claim holds that the Bono people migrated from the Ghana Empire—centered in present-day southeastern Mauritania and Mali—to establish Bonoman. This theory, popularized in colonial-era scholarship and early nationalist histories, lacks archaeological, linguistic, and oral evidence. Colonial administrators and early European scholars promoted the idea to connect forest-zone civilizations to the more familiar Sahelian empires, reflecting a bias that underestimated indigenous cultural development. However, no oral traditions from Bono-Takyiman or Begho refer to any Ghana Empire connection. Instead, they consistently trace origins to sacred sites such as the Amowi cave, emphasizing emergence from the land itself rather than migration from the Sahel.[92]

Archaeological and linguistic evidence therefore indicates that the Akan peoples of Bonoman developed locally within the forest and savanna regions of modern Ghana and Ivory Coast, rather than through any migration from the Ghana Empire or Sahara.[93] Excavations at Bono Manso reveal continuous settlement, agriculture, and iron-smelting activity predating any recorded Sahelian influence. Early radiocarbon dates from Amowi confirm its antiquity, aligning with oral accounts identifying it as the sacred origin site of the Bono.[56]

Myth of Mande-Islamic origins

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Another recurring misconception is that the Bono state and its institutions were introduced or significantly shaped by Mande-speaking Muslim traders (Wangara or Dyula). While Muslim traders did play an important role in the gold trade, they settled in designated quarters in towns like Begho, and did not govern the polity nor introduce its core political or spiritual institutions.[94] While acknowledging the presence of intercultural trade, scholars emphasize that the political authority, kinship systems (abusua), ancestral shrines, and regalia of Bonoman are of indigenous origin, not borrowed from the north.[95] A 2022 study further critiques the “Sahelian diffusionist” framework as a colonial invention. It argues that trade networks have been wrongly equated with political or cultural dominance, noting that Muslim traders in Bono cities such as Begho maintained segregated quarters and peripheral roles in local governance.[96]

Modern archaeological and ethnohistorical research has shown that Bonoman developed indigenously in the forest–savanna transition zone of what is now the Bono Region of Ghana, long before the Ghana Empire's decline. Sites like Amowi, Nkukua Buoho, and Bono Manso demonstrate continuous occupation, iron smelting, and complex social organization centuries before the 13th century.[97][98] Notable scholars refute the notion of northern origin, noting that archaeological layers at Bono sites and linguistic data suggest long-term, local development. The consensus is that the Akan states were not the product of Mande or Islamic diffusion, but rather a result of adaptive forest-based societies that evolved over millennia.[99]

Archaeological and oral evidence of indigenous development

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Archaeological studies confirm that iron smelting was practiced at Bono Manso by the 3rd century CE, and that surrounding settlements such as Amowi and Atwetwebooso were occupied well before the rise of the Sahelian empires.[100] Oral traditions collected by Dennis M. Warren also trace the origin of the Bono to local sacred caves such as Amowi, not to distant external migrations.[101] Effah-Gyamfi’s findings further support these traditions, showing that early Bono settlements featured complex political structures, advanced ironworking, and ceremonial practices associated with local rulers. His excavations confirm continuous habitation in the region long before any recorded influence from northern traders or empires.[56] Further analysis shows that core elements of the Bono gold economy, such as gold-weighing systems and regalia—were already developed locally before the peak of Muslim trade activity in the region, suggesting that cultural influence likely flowed in the opposite direction.[102]

Legacy

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Further information: Brong-Ahafo region

Politically, the Bono legacy endured through centuries of Asante domination and colonial rule after Bono-Manso’s fall in 1722–23, the Bono regrouped around Takyiman, preserving their state identity. In 1948, Bono-Takyiman formally disengaged from the Asante Confederacy, leading to the formation of the Bono Federation in 1951. The government of Ghana later created the Brong-Ahafo Region and the Brong-Ahafo House of Chiefs in 1960, institutionalizing Bono traditional authority within the modern state.[103] In the late twentieth century, Bono scholars and traditional leaders established the Bonoman Resource Center for Indigenous Knowledge (BRCIK) in Takyiman to document, preserve, and promote Bono medicinal practices, oral traditions, and cosmological knowledge. The center represents a continuation of the intellectual and cultural heritage of Bonoman, ensuring that traditional epistemologies remain part of Ghana’s national discourse on development and identity.[104]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b Effah-Gyamfi 1974, p. 219.
  2. ^ a b Effah-Gyamfi 1974, pp. 218–219.
  3. ^ a b Effah-Gyamfi 1974, pp. 224–225.
  4. ^ Effah-Gyamfi 1974, p. 226.
  5. ^ Effah-Gyamfi 1974, p. 227.
  6. ^ a b Ameyaw 1979, p. 53.
  7. ^ Effah-Gyamfi 1974, p. 217.
  8. ^ Konadu 2010, p. 34-6.
  9. ^ Davidson 2014, p. 174.
  10. ^ Konadu 2022, p. 76-81.
  11. ^ Gomez, Michael A. (9 November 2000). Exchanging Our Country Marks: The Transformation of African Identities in the Colonial and Antebellum South. Univ of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0-8078-6171-4.
  12. ^ Konadu 2010, p. 34.
  13. ^ Konadu 2007, p. 28.
  14. ^ Arthur 1961, p. 32.
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  16. ^ a b Compton 2017, p. 16.
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  18. ^ Effah-Gyamfi 1985, p. 9.
  19. ^ a b c Andah & Anquandah 1988, p. 505.
  20. ^ Konadu 2007, pp. 27–28.
  21. ^ Effah-Gyamfi 1974, pp. 220–221.
  22. ^ a b Konadu 2010, p. 35.
  23. ^ a b Andah & Anquandah 1988, p. 496.
  24. ^ a b Effah-Gyamfi 1974, p. 222.
  25. ^ Boahen 2005, p. 33.
  26. ^ Kumah 2024, p. 171.
  27. ^ Effah-Gyamfi 1985, p. 17.
  28. ^ Jones, D. H. (1962). "Jakpa and the Foundation of Gonja". Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana. 6: 1–29. JSTOR 41405749.
  29. ^ Flight 1970, p. 265.
  30. ^ Compton 2017, pp. 214–216.
  31. ^ Konadu 2010, p. 34–35.
  32. ^ Effah-Gyamfi 1974, p. 225–6.
  33. ^ a b Compton 2017, p. 226.
  34. ^ Effah-Gyamfi 1985, pp. 18–19.
  35. ^ Warren 1975, p. 16.
  36. ^ Effah-Gyamfi 1985, p. 19.
  37. ^ Warren 1976, p. 369.
  38. ^ Arhin 1979, pp. 12–13.
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  46. ^ Effah-Gyamfi 1985, pp. 25–26.
  47. ^ Effah-Gyamfi 1985, p. 23.
  48. ^ Wilks 1961, p. 37.
  49. ^ Compton 2017, p. 47.
  50. ^ Konadu 2007, p. 31.
  51. ^ Warren 1975, pp. 17–18.
  52. ^ Konadu 2007, pp. 50–52.
  53. ^ Konadu 2007, pp. 28–29.
  54. ^ Effah-Gyamfi 1985, pp. 29–30.
  55. ^ Effah-Gyamfi 1985, pp. 24–25.
  56. ^ a b c Effah-Gyamfi 1974, p. 221.
  57. ^ a b Compton 2017, p. 30.
  58. ^ Compton 2017, p. 34.
  59. ^ Compton 2017, p. 1.
  60. ^ Compton 2017, pp. 64–65.
  61. ^ Compton 2017, pp. 48, 137–147.
  62. ^ Konadu 2010, p. 51.
  63. ^ Ameyaw 1979, p. 52.
  64. ^ Anquandah, James (1993). "Urbanization and State Formation in Ghana During the Iron Age". In Shaw, Thurston; Sinclair, Paul; Andah, Bassey; Okpoko, Alex (eds.). The Archaeology of Africa: Food, Metals and Towns. London: Routledge. p. 645.
  65. ^ Anquandah 2013, p. 11.
  66. ^ Wilks 1961, p. 333.
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Sources

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Further reading

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